Diving In

I guess I'm part of the In Crowd. Who knew?

I could go on in some detail about how this has never been true for me before, how I've spent my whole life feeling like an outsider, and so on. But I think it's more useful to talk about how I came to be part of a group so cool and so much fun that people think we MUST be the In Crowd.

The simple explanation is one that should be familiar to unschoolers: connections. Unschoolers often speak about the organic nature of learning, and how each person's web of knowledge is made by making connections between separately attained bits of information. Well, our web of friendships has been made the exact same way: one friendship at a time.

And there's a big difference from the In Crowd you knew in high school: this In Crowd gets bigger every year. It is always open to new members, and all you need to do to belong is get started being a friend. Make a beginning.

I've written up a few examples to show how it has worked for us.

Dana Ellis. I met Dana in 2006 when a group of unschooling moms and kids (most of whom had never met before) got together at the Burlington Mall just to chat. I don't think I saw Dana again for three years. Then at LIFE is Good 2009, I played peek-a-boo with her baby and she helped me learn how to hoola hoop. Now we get together with some regularity, and she's a fun, crazy, sexy addition to my list of friends.

The moral: You just never know when the seeds of a friendship will take root.

Mary Gold. I knew Mary online, although I can't swear she knew me. She was one of the moms whose voices had convinced me to try unschooling and supported me through my deschooling. But we had never met in person until LIFE is Good 2007, our first unschooling conference. Even there, since she was very busy in her Conference Diva role, and since I felt pretty shy about meeting one of my mentors, we spent about five minutes together, total. By LIFE is Good 2008, Mary had become (and remains) one of my best friends.

The moral: There is no such thing as celebrity in the unschooling community.

Michelle Boswell and Robin Bentley. Michelle was one of the other moms at that first meeting with Dana. Robin was at LIFE is Good 2007, but we met only in passing. Later in 2007, I started STUN, our little teen group, and Michelle and her three kids and Robin and her daughter became core members. My friendship with these STUNing moms was nurtured in weekly group meetings and expanded via e-mail, individual get-togethers, and shared conference experiences. (And Robin is one hell of a backup chick!)

The moral: Sometimes you have to get things started.

Kelli Traaseth. I met Kelli in November 2007 at Mary Gold's non-con. We talked some, and our kids hit it off, so when we had a chance to get together with the Traaseths in Disneyland in 2008, we jumped on it. It was there that I discovered Kelli and I are twins separated at birth. Well, we're still separated, since she lives way over on the other side of the country, but we maintain our friendship online, and she scores big points by her willingness to host my kids whenever they get the urge to fly east. (I keep offering to return the favor, but so far, her kids haven't taken me up on it.)

The moral: Distance doesn't have to be a factor.

And here's where it gets interesting

At LIFE is Good one year, I made friends with Ginger Sabo. Ginger encouraged Beth Joling, a high-school buddy of hers, to come to LIFE is Good 2009. I met Beth there, and Beth also met Dana. Beth and Dana live in the same town north of here, so when I go up there, I usually get to see them both. Robin Bentley and Michelle Boswell sometimes go up with me, and some other friends, Shonna Morgan (another fabulous backup chick!) and Jacinta Galway, sometimes come down to join us.

Jacinta's husband, Russ Anguish, is one of the Greybeards, so he came down to San Diego last month for the show at Good Vibrations, the conference that Ginger helped to organize. Ginger's husband, Jeff, is our bass player. Jeff is good friends (some might even call them father and daughter ;->) with Kelly Lovejoy, the once-and-future diva of the Live and Learn Conferences. It was Kelly who invited me to speak at L&L 2008, where I got a chance to see the Traaseths again and where I met Ren Allen in person finally. Ren is another of my mentors, and it was she who found herself hosting a little party at LIFE is Good 2009 where I had time to speak to my new acquaintance, Russ Anguish. At that party, I also got the chance to visit with Mercedes Fulwiler, who was one of those moms who got together at the Burlington Mall all those years ago, and I got to see Diana Jenner, who is the one who first introduced me to Gillian and Craig Mayer back in 2007.

I got better acquainted with Gillian and Craig at the non-con hosted by Mary Gold in fall of 2007, and then they held a little gathering in summer of 2008 where I met the Stonebrakers, whom I got to see again at L&L 2008. The Stonebrakers are hosting MJ & Chloe next week when they all travel together to a little South Carolina gathering organized by Ben and Kelly Lovejoy. There, the girls will get to meet Faith Taintor and Elissa Cleaveland, two unschooling moms who are my friends on Facebook but whom I don't think I've met in person.

And speaking of Facebook...

Never mind. Don't get me started on that. :-)

I hope I'm making my point here. You can look at us now, happily surrounded by friends, ridiculously overbooked socially, and make assumptions about how we got here and what we feel about the people we don't know yet. But your assumptions would be wrong. When we arrived, friendless, in the unschooling community, all it took to join the In Crowd was recognizing one thing:

Everybody is welcome in the In Crowd.